Catgirls And Dungeons (Yuri)

"The light… the light…"

Alter murmurs under her breath, repeating Morvena's final words again and again like a mantra, trying to pull meaning from them, her eyebrows knitting in thought.

Meanwhile, I have no freaking idea what 'the light' means is either.

The light? What light? Is it some kind of threat? A person? A monster? A demon???

I scan the space around us. There's only the three of us here—Morvena, Alter, and me. There's no one else.

So then… who the heck is "the light?"

The only illumination comes from the towering radiant swords planted in a circle around us. They've been glowing this whole time with their sacred lights, acting as beacons to drive away darkness.

There's no way they're the enemy.

Right?

Suddenly—

RUMBLE.

The entire world trembles beneath our feet, like there's an earthquake going on. The air shifts, growing more and more heavy and thick, like the pressure building up in a sealed chamber.

Then I hear it.

Ringing.

A sharp, high-frequency resonance inside my skull, like a bell tolling across dimensions.

Alter wince and clutch our head as the light from the swords begins to intensify. It brightens and brightens, until it becomes nearly blinding. It burns our eyes just to look.

"Gah—!" Alter raises a hand to shield her face. Her voice is strained, almost buried under the rising hum. "I think… I know what's going on now…"

"What?!" I shout over the noise, panic flaring. "What's happening?!"

Her expression hardens, her tone shift.

"Steady yourself," she says. "Prepare for combat."

She stretches out her hand.

"Come—Sheol!"

From the ground, the great sword stirs. The blade of divine darkness launches upward into her palm, its three out of six orbiting eyes snapping open, glowing ominously.

Badump! badump!

Our heart pounds harder, faster, like a war drum, energy igniting.

Dark mana surges into our veins. Azazel's Guard wraps tighter around us, reacting, growing, whispering. Veins of blood-red lightning ripple across its surface, and the armor hums with raw, unstable power.

And then—

They appear.

"The light."

From the radiant swords surrounding us, they descend.

Hundreds of them.

Wraith-like figures pour out in swarms, their bodies of pure radiance, shaped like robed figures without faces. They all glow with a blinding, unearthly light. They look like cloaked ghosts wrapped in silk spun from sunbeams, their limbs lost beneath flowing sleeves.

There's no visible faces, no eyes, just a shapeless presence beneath a veil of radiance.

And each one has a pair of feathered, glowing wings.

They spiral above us like vultures made of starlight, shrieking in high-pitched voices that pierce the ears and scrape the soul, like a choir of distorted screams.

SCREEEEE—EEECH!

Alter flinches, baring her teeth. "Tch!"

Damn, that hurts!

What the heck are those sounds?

"Wait, are they angels?!" I ask, bracing the loud noise as well.

"No, more like angels wanna-be!" Alter smirk. "They're called Luminarch Sentinels. I summoned and put them here to protect Morvena's seal, I never expected they'd turn on us one day, like this."

And then, as if responding to her words, they lunge.

Dozens break from the sky, wings spread wide, light screaming from their bodies like blades.

"Here they come—!"

Alter doesn't hesitate. She swings Sheol wide. The blade roars to life, slashing a path through the air.

Shadow meets light.

And darkness cuts.

————————————-

And just like that, we're thrown into chaos.

The sky above convulses with radiant fury, churning clouds of divine fire casting the world in blinding white. The Luminarch Sentinels descend like a storm of judgment, their bodies trailing streaks of searing light, wings spread wide like fallen angels on a mission to purge.

They come screaming.

Wraithlike silhouettes wrapped in burning robes, faceless and soulless, shrieking with voices sharp enough to shred stone. The sound tears through the air—thin, high, and maddening—like glass being ground into your skull.

"HAAAAAA!!"

Alter lets out a battle cry, her body spinning like a blade through the eye of a hurricane. Sheol arcs in a wide, sweeping slash, the darkness of its edge flaring outward in a full-circle eruption. A shockwave of shadow detonates from the swing, creating an expanding ring of pure annihilation.

Dozens of Sentinels caught in the blast erupt like shattered suns, their light breaking apart into gleaming fragments before dissolving into ash.

But it doesn't slow them down.

Not even for a second.

SCREEEEEEECH!

Hundreds more surge forward, a writhing storm of screeches and flickering limbs. Their glowing arms twist and reform, into claws, then blades, then burning spears.

One of the perks, but also one of the biggest weaknesses, of being a catgirl is our really, really sensitive ears.

And right now?

This screaming is hell.

Pain flares behind our eyes. Our head throbs, every shriek is like a serrated knife slicing straight through my skull.

Thank the gods Azazel's Guard adapts fast. The armor morphs over our head, forming a smooth black helmet, muffling the noise by at least ninety percent.

Still loud as hell, though.

Honestly? I'd rather listen to someone drag nails across glass for an hour.

If these creatures had even the smallest sliver of intelligence, they'd stay airborne and scream us into submission.

That alone would be enough to break us.

But thankfully… they lacks intelligent.

There's no strategy, no coordination between individual sentinels in the swarm.

They only have this endless, mindless hunger.

SCREEEECH!

Another Sentinel dives from above like a comet, its radiant body blazing with holy light. One of its limbs morphs midair—twisting, warping—into a long blade of condensed energy. It slashes downward with terrifying speed.

But Alter is faster.

She twists.

The blow misses completely.

SHINNG—!!

A counterstrike flashes through the air.

In a blink, the creature splits apart, cleanly and effortlessly. Its body shatters into fragments of light and vanishes before it even hits the ground.

Still, something's bothering me. Something I don't quite understand.

"Alter," I call out. "You said these were your guards, right? Why the hell are they attacking us?!"

She doesn't pause. She swings Sheol again—

Two more Sentinels are consumed, their forms melting away beneath the blade of darkness.

"Well…" she cuts down two more without breaking stride, "probably demonic corruption."

"What?! But… but they're made of light!"

She ducks beneath another strike, slashes backhanded.

"Demonic energy can corrupt anything, you know?" she says casually, like we're chatting over tea.

"Even light?!"

"Yeah, even light." Her voice darkens. "And not just like, but even angels can fall. In my past life, I've seen and killed too many corrupted and fallen angel to count…"

"…Shit. That's terrifying."

"I know."

Sheol flashes again. One, two, three Sentinels vanish.

As the battle rages on, Alter moves like lightning, cloaked in shadow and fury. The Sentinels may be fast—but she's faster. Each swing of Sheol carves through them, devouring their forms in spirals of dark flame.

"And in this case, the corruption spreads," she continues, her tone sharp, "once they are corruped, they start craving more. More darkness, more demonic essence, just like how drug addicts craving, chasing their highs. And when their hunger grows too much…"

She grits her teeth and slashes through a winged one mid-lunge.

"They go berserk."

Suddenly, her words click into place with something Morvena told us earlier.

"Oh shit! So they're really the ones who pulled out Morvena's sealing swords?"

"Yeah!" Alter snarls. "Those greedy bastards."

She cracks her neck and adjusts her grip on Sheol.

"To think they're the reason my wife had to suffer so much."

A pause.

Then her eyes narrow, dark lightning cracking on Azazel's Guard surface, spreading to Sheol.

"I'm going to wipe them all out!"